From Seattle to the convoys rendezvous point of icy cable Aska west of Point Barrow
is three thousand miles
and I see Cape ships had to wait on the unpredictable behavior of the ever shifting
ice pack.
Meanwhile on the East Coast the ships out of Halifax were having their own hard
going some made their way singly to their destinations along the East Coast of
Baffin Island the others rendezvous then headed into Fox spaces on route to the
sites on the west coast of baton Island
and on the Melville Peninsula where at the rendezvous point they were joined by two
Canadian icebreakers which led them northward through four hundred fifty miles of
heavy ice after eight days
of nervous going in the on charted seas eight days a steady grinding with no
advance at all on some days the convoy made it to the Melville Peninsula
from here an airlift would have to fly everything to other sites not accessible by
water.
Inland from a staging area at Edmonton Alberta material for some of the central
sites where shipped by truck
and rail to the river town of waterways where it was put on barges
the barges proceeded down river for three hundred miles then because of rapids in
the river. The entire expedition had to take to the land or a port.
Even the new tugboat acquired by barge operations.
Had to make it along this twenty five mile stretch of terra firma
in the river again the barge train resumed its water route across Great Slave.
Then it continued northward down the Mackenzie River to the boat forty two thousand
miles in all.
To the western convoy waiting off icy cape the word came at last
that the ice was retreating.
But still it was touch
and go with the ice breakers clearing the way some
ships dashed to a nearby destinations as the narrow corridor was opened up.
Others pushed through to reach more site spot
and for twelve hundred miles further to the east at many sites the ships had to
unload in desperate haste for a shift in the wind could bring the ice back into
shore overnight
through late August
and into September the unloading of the ships proceeded along the full length of
the line every item carefully logged in and stored.
According to plan.
Now to build with the material brought by the ships in a race against the
approaching winter.
Work was rushed on the permanent living and operating quarters.
These were prefabricated structures made up of standard units called modules.
In the boat
or strewn terrain of some Eastern sites where there were no gravel deposits the big
rock pressures brought in by the sealift were put to work to supply the great
quantities of gravel and.
And needed it was in this area where the terrain was worst
that the longest roads had to be built here the stations were to be placed on top
of bricks some as high as twenty five hundred feet above the sea without the roads
modular units could not be hauled to their foundations
October ten months had gone by all too soon.
The long winter closes with its fierce storms its brief twilights
and long darkness.
Finishing the module interiors called for all the craft of the building trade
Americans
and Canadians were recruited from every corner of the two countries for the skilled
task for
the module concept solve the problem of providing shelter on the dual line
that would be adequate comfortable and safe
and could take it from the savage elements.
At the same time the TO began the all important task of installing the radar
and radio equipment the wiring of these
systems was extremely complex but experience and careful training paid off.
They were ready now to install the radar control console was being flown up by the
Air Force from a Western Electric plant in North Carolina.
But some sites had no landing strips for the big cargo plane police helicopter
and a shuttle in the one and a half ton mains containing the guns
and another job for the C one twenty four that winter was getting.
The big antennas of the search radars to the line from an Air Force Base in
Delaware the delicate match parts of each antenna were packed in seventeen
great especially designed in assorted shapes
and sizes to fit into to see one twenty four.
With the installation of the control console the inside electronic work was well
underway.
The stations were still locked in the grip of the second to line winter
but the crews but not wait longer to start of a few towers.
They blasted holes for the foundations of the photos in the
same mix concrete unheated tent. As they pour the concrete in the bitter cold.
They kept it from freezing by pumping in heat on the top
with the foundations in the tower worked quite steadily both.
June of the second year eighteen months gone fourteen to go
summer in the Arctic brings a blue moon wildflowers
and temperatures sometimes as high as sixty degrees. More often.
The temperature stayed near freezing
but the wind subsided much of the time then it was good weather for erecting the
search radar antenna these positions mechanisms would be damaged if a sudden wind
storm came up so one started the job had to be finished as fast as possible.
The crews worked around the clock until the entire assembly was in place
and its protective covering erected in
that second summer when you see live came and went another transportation epic
but already an old story on the do lines.
Ranking officers of the Air Force on their inspection tour late
that summer had good reason to be satisfied with the progress they've both
the Air Force
and Bell System officials kept in frequent first hand touch with work on the line.
And summer gave way to ball the crews pushed intensively to finish installing the
antennas in the aircraft alarm towers
and the various permanent radio systems
when the radio antennas were up the Stations of the line would be able to
communicate with each other more dependably
and the line could communicate with the air defense control centers far to the sun.
With permanents completed at most of the sites the airlift was giving full year
round service to virtually the entire line.
Some of those new permanent air strips in the rugged Eastern terrain were pretty
well rugged.
December. And the second of July in Christmas.
By now many of the sites were fully built project five seven two was proceeding on
schedule but indoors many months of work still remain to finish installing
and testing the radars on the communications systems
and to coordinate them from station to station here in the modules which housed
this equipment was the heart of each do Line station.
On the performance of the electronic equipment the success of the whole vast
undertaking would stand or fall the work went on.
And once you.
Are they Arctic winter closed him
off in the expression snow
and had a completely literal meaning
but nature in the Arctic no longer seems so set for life on the Dew Line had become
pretty civilized.
Your courters What a pleasant room which had quite a few of the comforts of home
your ship was one of three that kept the radar
and communications systems continually manned.
You worked through the morning and broke for a good lunch.
Then back to work on off time there were various sports to
help you keep fit. Spring baseball practice started early.
While you were working up an appetite for chef would be doing something about it.
After dinner because each man to his own pleasure. It might be music.
Perhaps you preferred a rousing game of table tennis no quarter given you can curl
up with a good book. Are there was
that other fine intellectual pastime called Put no quarter given here either.
But always on mainly there was the work of continuous testing the precise
calibrating of the electronic equipment so radically new in many respects through
that third winter
and spring more than a million tests were made to check out the detection
and tracking capabilities of the radars
you live thirty first of. The thirty second month since the job began.
On
that day the do a line system was declared officially operational completed on schedule.
You know about half the time such an undertaking normally would require even in a
civilized area and for the Canadian
and American people would have a distant early warning line guarding them against
attack from the north
but the building of the new line that's done more than provide a vital warning
system.
It has conquered the far northern wilderness this remote part of the world may
now be put to whatever purposes men which.
Do align stations may in time be further equipped taking advantage of new
technological advances and meeting new military threats
but perhaps the truest Oracle role of the dual line will prove to be the opening up
for peaceful
and productive purposes of a vast new frontier above the Arctic Circle the untapped
resources of which we have a he had barely a glimpse.
That would be the finest reward of all for the man who built the DEW line.
At both
news.